Skepticism

EVENTS

The guy’s an evolutionist, and there’s nothing in the whole course description about biblical creation as even a plausible alternative!

Oh, joy. We’re getting another cheesy Christian movie in which the college professor is the evil bad guy. We just had Kevin Sorbo pretending to be an angry atheist philosophy professor in God’s Not Dead, and now we get Harry Anderson playing an angry atheist biology professor in A Matter of Faith.

Rachel Whitaker, a Christian girl, heads off to college for her much-anticipated freshman year. New friends create situations that require important, quick decisions—some about her social life, some about her core beliefs! Rachel begins to embrace the ideas of the university’s immensely popular biology professor (Harry Anderson) who boldly teaches that Darwinian evolution is the only logical explanation for the origin of life, and the Bible therefore cannot be true. When Rachel’s father (Jay Pickett) senses something changing in his daughter while she is home on a weekend visit; he begins to look into the situation and what he discovers catches him completely off guard. Now very concerned about Rachel drifting away from her Christian faith and the clear teachings of the Bible, he accepts an impossible challenge and tries to do something about it!

Can you guess what the impossible challenge is? He’s going to debate the biology professor on evolution.

Gosh, I wonder who will win?

It’s rather clear that people who believe in the Bible don’t have much connection to reality in their entertainment.

OK, I made it a few seconds in. “Complex lifeforms evolved from simpler lifeforms?” Sure, that’s true. His examples are the chicken and the egg? Like the egg is a “simpler lifeform” that chickens evolved from? Sheesh. Sure, you can use embryology to illustrate evolution, but this is not the way to do it. Maybe they’re still hung up on Haeckel and recapitulation?

And the dialog. The football player saying: “she’s one of the cutest freshmen we’ve seen”. What the hell is that? The only thing worse than a talentless hack writer is an entire production team of talentless hacks who’ve intentionally isolated themselves from mainstream society attempting to write dialog for mainstream characters.

Entertainment? No car chases? No aliens? No violence? Since it is a fundamentalist movie, you know there will be no sex! I know, maybe they can burn the professor at the stake, isn’t that what good Christians are supposed to do to heretics?

I think the biggest disappointment here is that Harry Anderson got into show business through his skill as a magician and love of that craft. I had convinced myself that people who understood the art of deception were much better skeptics and understood how easy it is to fool themselves and others. Maybe not.

It looks like his TV and movie roles were almost completely non-existent the last 10 years. Perhaps this is just a chance for a cash-in.

I don’t recognize your nym, so I have to operate on the assumption that this comment is pure ignorance and not sarcasm:

I tend to think that scientists are far more obsessed about debunking religion than creationists are about denying science, but hey, I may be wrong…

Yes, you are wrong.

I didn’t take biology at the university. So, PZ, is that what the courses really are like ? Bible Refutation 101 ?

No, obviously not. Biology teachers don’t, as a rule, mention the Bible at all. If it comes up, it’s because some creationist student with no respect for his colleagues wants to waste everyone’s time asking about creationism. Professors don’t have time for that nonsense, they simply teach the science.

I did have a biology teacher in 10th grade who brought up Biblical creationism, because apparently he believed in it. But it was only briefly, and he was professional enough not to let that stop him from (as far as I recall) accurately teaching the principles of evolution for the rest of the year. None of my university science professors EVER brought up religion in any way, shape, or form.

My first thought was that this guy’s daughter was going to be embarrassed he’s doing this and lo and behold she says exactly that in the video. Plus the “she’s one of the cutest freshmen we’ve seen” thing is just icky and inappropriate. It isn’t about teaching his daughter anything useful. He’s in it for his own fifteen minutes of fame.

Christopher Thill: “I tend to think that scientists are far more obsessed about debunking religion than creationists are about denying science, but hey, I may be wrong…”

Actually, in my experience, the subject of religion and of religious alternative explanations hardly ever comes up unless it’s in geology, where the prof wants to emphasize the concept of deep time–the billions of years represented in the stratigraphic column…

Even for scientists who are religious, for the most part, the biblical alternative just isn’t interesting enough to bring up. Even when the scientist is a creationist, they tend to compartmentalize their views. Scientists are interested in predictive power, and creationism has none.

And the dialog. The football player saying: “she’s one of the cutest freshmen we’ve seen”. What the hell is that?

Apart from utterly incompetent as dialogue, it sounds charmingly bisexual, which doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone in any way involved in the making of this fundamentalist turkey. This gives some indication of the calibre of creative talent we’re talking about here.

It is, in other words, fair warning: “Don’t watch this embarassingly woeful fucking movie, you’ll be cringing in the aisles!”

It’s ominous, indeed, for those of us who are going to have to sit through it in order to take the piss out of it in a fair-minded and even-handed manner. :)

I went through 4 years of undergraduate biochemistry, molecular genetics and developmental biology at Oxford in the UK. Religion\Creationism was mentioned zero times. All that was presented was evidence. We were encouraged to examine this, study the processes by which the evidence had been acquired,critique it and draw and defend our conclusions. Oh as well as doing our own experimental work. This is what pisses me off about fundamentalists – they project that science starts off with a conclusion and bends the evidence to fit it, as in the AIG “Worldview” argument. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I did have a biology teacher in 10th grade who brought up Biblical creationism, because apparently he believed in it. But it was only briefly, and he was professional enough not to let that stop him from (as far as I recall) accurately teaching the principles of evolution for the rest of the year.

I think that is actually, if not admirable, at least respectable of him.

He would be the kind of creationist I have zero problems with. Unfortunately, not a very representative example I am afraid.

I have a hunch (just a hunch; i could be wrong) that this will not actually be a creationist movie but an apologetic movie whose theme is “see, evolution is compatible with religion so you can all feel good”.

The preview showed the evolutionist getting a zinger in the debate and, well, there was something off about the mood of the trailer. Not enough accusation of evolution as brainwash and no mention of thermodynamics.

So, a christian man in his first year of college encounters a philosophy professor hostile to his faith, who, by training, is good at dissecting argument itself and should be a skilled debater in writing at least and possibly also in spontaneous conversation. The christian man steps up to the challenge of debating said professor to defend his own soul…and wins!

A christian woman in her first year of college encounters a biology professor hostile to her faith who, by training, is good at mucking out filtration systems and identifying squiggles in microscopes. The christian woman slides into temptation, making it necessary for her father to risk his soul by entering a hotbed of atheism to defend the helpless christian maiden from the amoral depredations of said professor.

I tend to think that scientists are far more obsessed about debunking religion than creationists are about denying science, but hey, I may be wrong…

Just to pile on here, creationists are entirely about denying science. They don’t have any positive contributions -after all these decades, none have them have sat down to develop a Theory of Creation. All they do is pick at the edges of science trying to find a weakness.

EVIL BIOLOGY PROFESSOR Z.P. MEIERES: (bursting into tears) “AIIIEEE! I am undone! No, I wasn’t there, and the only way we can know for sure what happened is to read the record of the One who was there, and that was God, and by the way I specifically mean the Christian God and not the Muslim or Jewish or Zoroastrian deities because we can safely dismiss THEIR religious books as silly pagan superstition, unlike the Christian Bible which is the Word of God, and HE WAS THERE!!”

[a BOLT OF LIGHTNING strikes EVIL BIOLOGY PROFESSOR Z.P. MEIERES.]

EVIL BIOLOGY PROFESSOR Z.P. MEIERES: “Argh! I die! I can feel the demons dragging my soul into Hell, where I shall be tortured forever, and I totally deserve it too, because I BELIEVED IN THE LIE OF EVOLUTION!”

EARNEST CHRISTIAN: “If only he had repented of his pride and his falsely-so-called-science before he died! But at least he won’t condemn any more students to Hell with his humanistic pagan false teachings.”

To be fair, they have contributed the idea of irreducible complexity, which does seem to play some kind of role in their movie scripts.*

It appears no new information can be added to a creationist movie script. While the next movie down the line might vary a bit from its “parent”, none of creationists’ movies will ever gain such complex traits as imagination without some serious intervention by an intelligent designer.

Just chiming in with all the others: I have absolutely no recollection of any science — or, for that matter, humanities, philosophy, literature, or medical — professor ever even mentioning religion. History, yes, unsurprisingly, but not making any value judgments per se, rather in the evolution of religions (plural) and the impact on the society, governments, and warfare.

And the dialog. The football player saying: “she’s one of the cutest freshmen we’ve seen”. What the hell is that?

Aren’t they just trying to show how shallow the Footballers are; that they only care how “cute” a girl is? The movie [unseen] is just trying to mock EVERYONE; football, cheerleaders, professors, religionists, et al.
if only…

No, it doesn’t. (I’m a bisexual person). It’s a male athlete commenting on the cuteness index of what he assumes to be a hetro woman.

I’m not sure if you have my meaning: it’s meant to be a male athlete commenting on the cuteness index of a woman. It sounds sexually ambiguous, on account of the script being incompetent dreck.

OK, so you weren’t charmed…

Of course there’s always the possibility that this is a liberal-minded and progressive
fundamentalist evangelist Creationist movie, and the football players are actually portrayed as gay, bisexual etc, but I mentally discounted that as unlikely. :)

I’m surprised that the father or the girl do not convert the professor,.
As presented it is made clear that the christian religion is about control in the here and now and not concerned with the redemption of jesus.
So if you want and need the absolute domination of certainty and crave the security of obedience to absolute authority….

My experience with science classes was that there was barely enough time to get through the material need to cover the basics let alone go off on a tangent about religion. The only course I took that was in any way different was my intro to anthropology the first day was a discussion of two basic ideas, you can’t believe everything you see without question and all gods were created by man (except yours). From then on it was off to the races with concepts and ideas with data coming at us almost to fast to keep up just like all the rest college level classes .

To take just one example, god created Adam and Eve and put them in a magic Garden. With a talking smartass snake and the Tree of Knowledge. An idiot could have seen this wasn’t going to end well. An all powerful, omniscient god should have known what would happen.

Why wasn’t the Tree of Knowledge on Jupiter or Kpax IV? And where did the talking snake come from?

The guy’s an evolutionist, and there’s nothing in the whole course description about biblical creation as even a plausible alternative!

Priceless – they are coming right out and saying ‘why won’t you take my theory that an invisible man in the sky created the universe by means of magic seriously’ and expecting not to be laughed at. That they think a magic sky fairy should be viewed as a ‘plausible alternative’ to perhaps the single most comprehensively evidentially supported theory in the entire history of scientific endeavour sort of makes satire obselete.

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Christophe Thill @ 10;

I tend to think that scientists are far more obsessed about debunking religion than creationists are about denying science, but hey, I may be wrong…

Have you seen the attempts by creationists to manipulate educational boards in the US into removing evolutionary theory from the cirriculum? Or to treat a theological position as if it is the exact same thing as a scientific theory, claiming a right to ‘teach the controversy’ while their cronies misrepresent evolutionary theory to brainwash children? Have you seen their attempted legal challenges aimed at getting the teaching of evolution outlawed?

Even in the UK we are getting creationists – almost all of whom are either American citizens themselves or funded by their US fellow travellers – periodically trying to to insert their theology into our science classes, and claiming to be persecuted when it isn’t allowed.

I think that there are plenty of creationists who do little but try to undermine scientific endeavour.

Throughout my undergraduate and graduate biological training, I cannot recall any instructors ever even mentioning religion. With one exception. I went to a seminar on evolutionary biology, and the speaker invited anyone interested to a discussion the next day on the religious and philosophical implications of evolution. And that seminar speaker was:
Will Provine.

I’m surprised that the father or the girl do not convert the professor,. [sic]

The father converts/saves the daughter. Whether or not the evilutionist professor is converted/saved is not relevant.

Men directly challenged stand up for themselves. Men whose women are devalued protect their interest in their women’s value.

Since a man directly challenged has already won himself when deciding to stand up for himself, no matter how well or badly the debate goes, to bother to show the debate requires something hingeing on the debate – the other party has to lose. A man fighting to stop a slide in property values has to stop the slide in his woman’s property value. Catching the polluter is secondary to stopping the pollution.

… people who believe in the Bible don’t have much connection to reality in their entertainment.

Fortunately, the rest of us can watch the new Captain America movie, plus upcoming hits such as How to Train Your Dragon 2, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, X-Men: Days of Future Past and The Amazing Spider-Man 2!

Unfortunately, due to the success of the God’s Not Dead marketing model of busing in church and Christian private school groups to see the movie, as well as the low budget nature of these movies, it seems we will only be seeing more of them for a while until the trend burns out

It sounds like for every ticket bought by a person who actually wants to see the movie him- or herself, there are ten tickets bought by someone who wants to make sure that other people see the film. Sort of like how teacher-led public school prayer isn’t about your kid’s “right” to pray at school — he or she can already do that on their own — it’s about making sure everyone else’s kid prays (or feels the social pressure of not doing so).

From a business perspective, I admire that someone’s found a way to monetize the desire of evangelicals to make other people sit through their propaganda.

I think that’s what they’re trying to do, I just don’t think people talk like that, especially college athletes. They’re trying to show them as shallow and immoral, but they can only do it in Leave it to Beaver language.

Agreed. I found him a very respectable person in general, and respectful of his students’ beliefs. There are still a few things I know about biology and evolution that I can trace back to that year, so I think he did a pretty good job as a teacher. As you say, it’s too bad more creationists aren’t like him.

I have absolutely no recollection of any science — or, for that matter, humanities, philosophy, literature, or medical — professor ever even mentioning religion.

Nor I, and not just at the collegiate level… that includes high-school. But it’s not generally the teaching establishment that makes noise about this topic… it’s mostly the religious students, or worse parents of students, bitching and moaning that their very specific christian myth isn’t being given the same treatment as reality. And, as others have already mentioned, all the while failing to even consider any other creation mythology. But then again, self-awareness isn’t really a christian value, is it?

The guy’s an evolutionist, and there’s nothing in the whole course description about biblical creation as even a plausible alternative!

Also, just wanted to mention, are these people really that utterly blinkered about biology? I mean, your daughter went off to a public college and you thought that “biblical creation” would be taught in a biology class?

In four years of college I never once had a professor try to debunk religion. I did have a philosophy professor chide us atheists for not trying hard enough to see the other side’s point of view after reading Kierkegaard’s “Fear and Trembling”.

Looks like the fundies have gotten sick and tired of losing debates in the real world, so they’ve decided to stage “debates” in fictional movies. Hard to lose a debate you’ve scripted and paid actors to play out.

A Hindu sequel to Gravity where they have to fly around the Sun to get to the Moon.
The Jehovah’s Witness sequel to Jurassic Park where all dinosaurs are vegetarians.

Think of the possibilities!

You mean the one where the heroes are flying home after a desperate (but ultimately successful) attempt to redeem the life of one who sacrificed everything for a few dozen crew-mates, despite a previously no-nonsense materialist viewpoint, thus revealing the possibility of beliefs more deeply rooted than logic can grow?

Then they find a huge spaceship above earth destroying the planet trying to contact the tyrannosaurs that stayed behind when the smart, peaceful, collaborative, sin-free maniraptors embarked on centuries of galactic exploration? (Undoubtedly, the ones remaining behind did so to nurture the morally and physically fragile humans.) The heroes have to slingshot around the sun to before the Noachian flood and convince some T-Rexes that those big melons that they love crunching with their teeth are more plentiful in the future. A few T-Rexes resist the idea, but are finally persuaded that
1) Humans as advanced and friendly as Our Heroes make it unlikely that Homo really does need moral guidance from T Rexes
2) Replicator Honeydews taste awesome, with almost no change in texture (if anything, they’re a bit on the crunchy side)!

So the T Rexes jump on board and are slingshotted back to the future, where their hail stops the orbiting communications array/death ray. The T rexes are excited to see how God’s Chosen Species has developed over the past 6k years, and head to the park to let their baby raptors play and chat with human parents. But then one of the humans introduces his two mommies and makes the baby T Rex cry!

The T Rexes get back into their ship, inviting the two mommies and kid along, then destroy earth after all and advance ominously on the captive humans…foreshadowing their first taste of meat, and their discovery of the delightfully crunchy texture of human skulls: all that to come in

5 Year Mission V: The Tyrant’s Last Tear

As a totally unrelated side note, has anyone noticed, on e-bay or craigslist or somewhere, an affordable, shipping-included life?

As a lecturer at a university and community college the issue of religion is brought up in the context of misconceptions of evolution or when talking about the “other theories” (ie. Intelligent design). It is really unavoidable in today’s intro to biology classes (major and non-major) to not talk about them.

I just spoke about it last night and there were several things that I mentioned:

I went to a private Christian high school. Before my class graduated, the teachers stressed to us that various trials and tribulations we’d face if we went to a public, secular university. Well, the stressed it to me since I was the only one not going to Bible college. I was told that the professors were going to challenge my faith. They’d call me out during class to ridicule me. I’d be forced to learn things like evolution that were lies. It was all very dramatic.

All in all, going to public university was the best decision I’ve ever made.

The only time I ever had a university professor bring up creationism was in the first few minutes of my anthropology 101 course. She obviously had put up with one too many arguments with creationist students, because she explicitly invited anyone who had a problem with an old Earth and evolution to leave and drop the course or to keep their mouths closed on the subjects for the semester.

I was surprised, only because I didn’t know there were any creationists around. The majority of the class knew differently and actually applauded the announcement. I know the class wasn’t entirely made up of first years, so the second and third year students there must have had similar frustrations. Still, no one left, but neither was the class derailed at any point.

From what I can tell from the trailer the biology professor in this movie is supposed to be a more likeable, affable character than the philosophy professor in the other one, who ruled by intimidation and fear.

That’s so the Christian audience can see what they’re up against — and how EVIL can hide behind a smile. Popular = bad.

I don’t know if this counts as religion or not, but we recently talked about radioactivity and radiometric dating in my general chemistry class. I mentioned the time limits of carbon-14 dating, and how unscrupulous people could “use” carbon-14 dating to “show” that dinosaur fossils are the same age as cave paintings and as evidence against evolution and in favor of creationism.

I just spoke about it last night and there were several things that I mentioned:

1) I wrote on my powerpoint slide “Misconceptions of Evilution” because most people who do not believe in evolution believe this for religious reasons and they think if there is not a god and a moral arbiter of absolute right or wrong then we can do anything we want without consequences and therefore evolution is evil. I guess some people will not want to believe in evolution because that don’t want to believe that “we came from apes” but this is also a misunderstanding as we have a common ancestor.

2) Evolution does not explain the origins of life, so it does not weigh in on if life came about from natural mechanisms or if there was an omnipotent being

3) Creationist (and Intelligent Design) call their framework a “theory” while saying that evolution is just a “theory”, which never made any sense to me. But what they are really doing is making a false equivalency. Intelligent design is a hypothesis while evolution is a theory. Also the only scientifically testable hypothesis that ID has ever come up with (as far as I know) is irreducible complexity which has been disproven.

Here is the full list of topics that I covered under the misconception ppt (Just a theory, Individuals evolve, Evolution explains the origin of life, Organisms evolve on purpose, Evolution is controversial among scientist, Other “Theories” should be taught). These were in the free online biology book that we have been using at the community college (http://cnx.org/contents/b3c1e1d2-839c-42b0-a314-e119a8aafbdd@8.10). But at the university the biology professors will bring up ID and why it’s not valid.

When I teach evolution I spend a good part of one lecture in the first week of the semester laying out some of the basics of the evidence for evolution (domestication and antibiotic resistance as examples of microevolution, molecular and phenotypic data reflecting similar patterns of descent with modification from a common ancestor among all extant life, clear transitional forms in the fossil record, etc.) and debunking a few of the most egregious anti-evolution arguments (“observational” vs. “historical” science, ID, the idea that evolution is entirely random, etc.). Then I tell them they’re all free to their religious belief systems and I won’t try to convince them otherwise, and that they’re also free to not accept the science of evolution if that’s the conclusion they reach at the end of the semester; but that they still have to demonstrate an understanding of the principles of the field if they want to do well in the class, because it’s simply not possible to be a broadly educated biologist without at least a basic understanding of evolutionary theory and we’re not in the habit of churning out poorly educated biologists. Then I don’t bring the “controversy” up again the rest of the semester.

The poster is amusing me. The ape hand, the slightly less hairy ape hand…

… no, it’s not just their rather notable homology (umm, yeah, ya might want to think about that choice, creationist propaganda dudes, though I can’t help but wonder if the hairier ape’s thumb is left out of sight on purpose), so much as it puts me in mind of one of the throway between scene gags in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, with the monster hand getting into the stock ‘hand turning a page’ scene…

‘… and there’s nothing anywhere in the course description about biblical creation as a credible… (Growl!) Aaaaarrrgh!!!…’

No self respecting biology teacher would use the “what came first the chicken or the egg” analogy. The best current evidence has the egg coming first because feathered dinosaurs had eggs and chickens are descendents from feathered dinosaurs.

The only time creationism has come up in class for me was in 7th grade when we studies “Inherit the Wind”. Because duh. One of the teachers even had his class read the first part of Genesis, just so everyone knew what the play was talking about.

These films really show contempt for their audiences. Can they at least present a plausible atheist professor. It’s not like there aren’t literally hundreds of examples on you tube for example, virtually every William Lane Craig debate to draw from. Even the worst WLC debater sounds infinitely better than these stand in for atheist clowns. Any brain dead idiot could go on you tube and check out a few of these debates and quickly see that these “atheists” in these films are so far afield from reality that calling these caricatures is charitable in the extreme. The standard angry atheist professor raises his voice routine or standard atheist professor makes students renounce god routine. But the contempt for the audience is fine if your listeners never expose themselves to anything outside their self imposed bubbles – perhaps they don’t even watch you tube or read wikipedia, instead subscribe to godtube and conservapedia.

Christopher Thill:
The only professor I ever had who brought up anything to do with religion was in an “Archaeology and the Bible” course. And even he did not bring up any religion, he just taught about archaeology from that area.

Some scientists want to defend actually teaching science to children, instead of history or religion during a science class. But that is no more controversial than arguing to teach math in a math class.

Of course if you seek blogs by scientists which are all about debunking psuedosscience, alternative medicine, religion, etc, then you’ll find scientists who spend a lot of time debunking. But the number of people running blogs is pretty small compared to all scientists.

And Creationists, or activists, at least,, by definition, try to debunk science. That’s their raison d’etre.

boydofd@8, being a magician unfortunately seems to have no effect on whether you’re into questionable ideas. Andre Kole is a stage magician who has created various illusions used by the likes of David Copperfield. He’s also apparently done some debunking of psychic powers and such. But for years most of his performances have been in support of Campus Crusade for Christ.

The late Doug Henning went so far down the Transcendental Meditation rabbithole he gave up being a magician in the mid ’80s to concentrate on TM related projects, including earning a Ph.D in the Science of Creative Intelligence from Maharishi University in Switzerland, and running for Parliament in both Canada and the UK under the Natural Law Party banner. James Randi went so far as to claim that Henning’s TM involvement made him eschew the conventional medical treatments that might have stopped the liver cancer that killed him.

Then there’s Penn Jillette, who has bought into libertarianism very heavily.

I think something I just heard mentioned on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe applies to the question of skeptical magicians. Dr. Novella pointed out that just knowing all of the ways that our brains fail us in accurately perceiving and understanding reality does not prevent us from falling prey to them. We have to actively consider whether our internal biases or rewriting of memory are leading us astray. We have to spend some time thinking about our thinking processes.

Obviously, this is what Penn Jillette fails at. I think this, combined with a bit of Dunning Kruger plays a role when magicians go astray. They have legitimate skills at tricking the brain and understand many of the ways of tricking the brain, but some of them may think that means they will recognize all tricks and be immune to trickery. Then you have all those things you’ve mentioned, as well as Randi’s mistaken comments on climate change (Randi, however, was admirably quick to accept correction).

I went to a catholic college and took a lot of biology. The profs were careful at the start of courses dealing with evolution to respectfully say, if you have a problem with what we teach here, take it up with your minister, we have biology to teach. I had a lot of gripes with the school for the way they ran things, but never had an issue with the bio dept.

woozy #30: I have a hunch (just a hunch; i could be wrong) that this will not actually be a creationist movie but an apologetic movie whose theme is “see, evolution is compatible with religion so you can all feel good”.

Note that the link provided by PZ goes to Answers in Genesis, which is promoting this turd. Your hunch seems unlikely to hold up.

Eh…trite little stories with a neat little conclusion intended to batter you over the head with some lesson are as old as the Bible: “And that bridegroom was Jesus Christ! Now you know the rest of the story!”

being a magician unfortunately seems to have no effect on whether you’re into questionable ideas…

I have a book to recommend to you. The Fakers by Danny Korem. ~ 1980, ISBN-13: 978-0801054358,978-0800711306, possibly other editions. Korem was a stage magician. It resembles any other skeptical book you may have read, with chapters on dowsing, seances, etc. It dispells them with the usual skeptical explanations you have probably already heard. But each chapter ends with something like, “It’s a pity that people get taken in by this phony stuff, because it blinds them to the real magic of Jesus.” After several chapters like that, Korem, a Messianinc Jew, goes into his apologetics. As a bonus, the book’s foreword is written by Josh McDowell.

Note that the link provided by PZ goes to Answers in Genesis, which is promoting this turd. Your hunch seems unlikely to hold up.

Yeah… I changed my mind after viewing a few more sites including the movie’s home page. There’s still something that seems a little off about this vs. the usual creationist tripe.

My revised hypothesis is that they are going for a more mainstream audience and a “teach the controversy” approach. This professor isn’t evil just because he believes in evolution, and hey, that’s okay, ’cause we all can have our opinions! Just like our opinions is that creationism makes more sense! But oh noes! the cynical black professor was black-balled for not towing the evolutionist line, so that’s the real evil. Not teaching the alternatives. Oh, and young kids. When you go to college nice friendly folks will try to get you to change your mind with convincing sounding facts and stuff. You don’t have to listen ’cause it’s all a matter of opinion. And you main-streamers, what are you getting upset at us for, we’re just expressing an opinion.

There’s a weird mindset to these christian flicks. I think the know their audiences really well. So they do God’s word and “Hell house” type stuff for the in-group and hey, leap of faith, that’s cool, stuff for the main-stream. They’re smarter than they look.

This sudden upsurge in Christian revenge-fantasy movies leaves me with two questions: will we finally be seeing GLORIOUS BASTERDS turned into a real movie, and will the Rifftrax crew ever take on one of these movies?

Your mentioning of Hell House (I assume you were referring to this movie) reminded me of a great scene in that movie, where they were trying make a Satanic ritual scene, but instead of using a pentagram they used a Star of David. That was funny stuff.

Oh, it was totally accidental – it least it very clearly looked that way to me. They were trying to set up a proper looking Satanic ritual based on whatever fever dreams they’d have about such goings on, with no intention of implicating Judaism. They were just incredibly ignorant of the group they were trying to “demonize” (as well as of Judaism…). Maybe someone else here who’s seen the movie had a different take, but that was my very strong impression.

@101. I wasn’t familiar with the Hell House movie (was it a documentary?) but I did mean that Christian Haunted House phenomenon.

I’m kind of intrigued with this recent batch of religious flicks (God is not Dead, I Origins, and now Matter of Faith) which seem to be aimed at a more mainstream audience than the earlier more heavy handed “Left Behind” type stuff that was aimed at the in-crowd. The Christiano bozo directed an “incrowd” movie (a christian version of The Time Machine) in which is described as “Nineteenth-century Bible professor Russell Carlisle’s (D. David Morin) new book, which asserts that morality can be taught independent of Christianity, is soon to be published. But a devout colleague (Gavin MacLeod) believes that what Carlisle has written will seriously affect the morals of future generations. To prove his theory, he sends Carlisle more than 100 years into the future, offering him a glimpse of where his writing will lead.” Oog. Anyway, it’s interesting the way the same folks market for different audiences. I’m not articulating well but … there’s something weird about it all. And they are clever in knowing what their audiences want. Fundies want absolutes and warrior jesus with a baseball bat just over the horizon, while urban bobos want fuzzy spirituality and a sense that gee, anything fuzzy can be true if we are open minded enough. And these film makers know how to pitch to both.

I can’t particularly hate Anderson for this. Not knowing the whole story, anyway.

I get some of that general feeling seeing a lot of actors not working a lot in vehicles don’t look real pretty as the capstone to a career, and seeing the general skeeviness of this company and this project, I find myself thinking: here, a bit the same as I feel watching anyone sliding into their directly-to-video decade, well, maybe he does need the money, and y’know, a guy’s gotta eat. And I looked around a bit, didn’t find him doing a lot of godbotting anywhere. And needing money can make people do stupid things…

… and who knows how it was presented to him. Even if the script was giving off a smell, people get sucked into things, and go along, often painfully far (hell, I figure that’s a lot of how people wind up in religions themselves). And until he’d seen the PR material, who knows if he really could even see what a travesty it would be. And much of the public are, I think, a bit naive about this stuff, just how devious the creationists can be. They hear a lot of talk of ‘balance’, and if it’s not their subject exactly, maybe it sounds fair enough.

… and yeah, people rationalize. He could be smelling it all over the project, what bullshit it is, what a caricature that character is, but keep saying, well, y’know, oh, yeah, they’re paying me, and hey, I can do a ham, who’s gonna take it seriously, they just want ‘balance’, yadda yadda… And see also motivated reasoning.

(/Mind, I guess I just kinda hope that was his story, that he was in over his head before he realized just what he was being paid to do. Or, as mused: he really needed that money. Like it was that or start looking for a buyer for a kidney.)

@105
Yeah, it is a documentary (and upon a re-read of your original comment I replied to I’d misread you when I thought you were referring to it). If you’re interested in the “hell house” phenomenon generally I think it’s worth a watch. That scene I mentioned with the pentagram/Star of David was very (unintentionally) funny, but the movie overall is a pretty interesting and at times fairly disturbing look at the thought processes of the people involved. Another interesting documentary in a similar vein is Jesus Camp.

I thought of a new pilot for a TV show – The Atheist X-Files. Two FBI agents look at the elaborate conspiracy that atheists actually exist, and they are planning to take over the government, destroy Christian America, infect children with godless immorality, desecrate communion wafers and like demon possession control peoples minds. With any luck it could be as good as True Blood or The Walking Dead, vampires and zombies are good analogies for atheism anyway. Maybe we could put our collective minds together and put together a nice script.

Wouldn’t it be easier if the producers took all the money that they’d spend on these Christian persecution-porn films and just buy all the fundagelicals crosses for their front yards, big enough to crawl up on when they feel their right to piss on everyone else is being violated?

Seems clear that the producers / writers thought they were on to something slick in the setup, in attempting to create the characters in such a way that those Christians who have remained more lukewarm in the face of the ongoing “debate” will be convinced to become more “involved.”

Obviously, none of it is as clever or original as they may have thought. Common themes (some with some “clever” spins) include:
– Pulling the heart strings by centering the conflict on a white daughter, who as mentioned in previous posts, cannot argue for herself, couldn’t possibly be a protagonist due the fact that she must represent a lamb (Christian metaphor for precious human property, etc…) requiring protection, and whose openness, core compassion for others and innocence place her in harm’s way.
– Amplifying the sense of the wrong done by the “educational establishment” by emphasizing the unexpected shock experienced by a loving and faithful father when he finds that his trust in the essential goodness of the system has been betrayed, and that the system is rotten to the core. He is the embodied call to the lukewarm to wake up, and stand up.
– The wronged and excluded ex-professor, whose “servant’s heart” directs his attempt to serve the good in a corrupt environment (note that he’s black) and puts him in harm’s way. It appears from the trailer that he is in some sense redeemed by the surrogate (!). He may also address the concerns of more sensitive white Christians, who may be lukewarm due only due to the media’s misguided portrayal of bible believers as racist, which is totally not based on something.
– The likable professor, a character onto whom the audience can project casts of delusion, purposeful evil, utilitarian manipulation, the corrupting effects of being a pawn to the system, or whatever else might be emotionally or psychologically useful. The apparent Bill Nye / entertainer update is a nice touch, and Anderson’s presence makes a “clever” allusion to the trickster, and the purveyor of illusion.

Since the actual movie itself would be even more painful than the trailer, we’d have to see the script to know where the football player’s thing is going. Due to the quality of the writing and acting, it’s impossible to tell if the “cutest freshman” comment is meant to mean “Wow! She’s swell!” or “Damn! Get the roofies!”. But he appears EITHER:
A) To be present to shore up the preciousness (desirability) of the daughter, since her believing male classmates can’t openly do that without poisoning their concern with sexual implications and thereby mangling the argument for Christian schools and offending fatherly sensibilities. OR
B) Present to cleverly address the concerns of Christian fathers who are not quite so football-y (and therefore potentially more lukewarm in belief?) that the classroom is not the only threat academia holds for their lambs. This would be seen as very even-handed, similar to the inclusion of the black ex-professor, and would speak to the depth and reach of the system’s vile corruption.

Adding an extreme lack of originality of my very own, I suggest a double feature with The Body Snatchers, if the latter has ceased to cause any form of fear.

The story depicts an extraterrestrial invasion of a small California town. The invaders replace human beings with duplicates that appear identical on the surface but are devoid of emotion or individuality. A local doctor uncovers what is happening and tries to stop them.[2]

Fundie xians have been referred to as “Pod People” because they are rather uniform and seem to lack enough self awareness to pass the Mirror test much less a Turing test. Just replace alien invasion with cult, cult leader, or fundamentalist religion and the movie writes itself.

Rare and Unusual Psychiatric Syndromes – Medscape
www. medscape .com/features/slideshow/rare-psych‎
Capgras Syndrome
It is characterized by a person’s delusional belief that an acquaintance, usually a … member, has been replaced by an identical looking impostor or several doubles.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers has endured through 3 remakes and over 1/2 century.

While the premise seems far out, it’s not. A not uncommon mental symptom is Capgras syndrome, where people believe those around them have been replaced by duplicates that are indistinguishable from the original. There is something in the human brain organization that makes this belief seem plausible.

…There is something in the human brain organization that makes this belief seem plausible.

Yes there is.
It’s the Fucking Hell My Children Are Being Educated Gyrus, sometimes referred to as the Fucking Hell My Wife’s Not Putting Up With This Shit Anymore Thing In There Somewhere.
It’s totally ancient.

I like how in the version of this story with the boy, it’s the student himself who debates the professor. But in this version, the girl falls for it, and has to be rescued by her father. Because, you know, she’s a lady and all.

I like how she has been so poorly prepared by her oh-so-Christian dad that she starts falling for the “lies” the professor is shovelling out. Where is her faith? Whete is the blame for his failure?

Then all it takes to get her back is a sermon, delivered in a debate format. And she’s safe, now? Isn’t her husband going to have to keep her locked in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant?

The fact-free nature is also odd. The professor waves around an egg and a rubber chicken, and says something stupid—no field trip, no fossils, no examples—just a comedy bit. And the big fix involves only a lecture from a lectern—no field trip, no fossils, just a speech.

My first biology class religion was specifically mentioned, but it was more in a prophylactic “I don’t want to deal with this shit” sort of five minute lecture about non-overlapping magisteria and falsifiability. In short “religion and science can be all happy, god isn’t measurable so science makes no claims on the subject.” It was bullshit, but it shut up any potential annoyances and let us get in with the business of learning.

Wow, Harry Anderson hasn’t aged all that well since his sharp, skinny self in “Night Court.” Good to see he’s still getting the occasional gig, though. Even if it is in rancid detritus like a Christian movie.

I suspect that the only people that will be get the desired effect if this movie will most likely not go to university or get much out of if they do. The effect on most youth who do see the movie and then go one to university and take any science classes will probably be similar to the effect ” Reefer Madness” had on smoking weed .
The obvious lies will become obvious When you got nothing but BS, ignorance and exaggeration you are very vulnerable to exposure when compared to actual experience with the truth
uncle frogy

(We were in the break after the FATHER’s surprising questions threw the PROFESSOR off guard. The PROFESSOR’s face is bright red in anger and shame. How could he, a famous professor, be suddenly challenged by a mere hard-working man? Someone knocks on the door.)

SCHOOL EMPLOYEE 81: It is time, professor. Everyone is ready for the last round of questions.

PROFESSOR: Thank you, I will be right there.

SCENE #667 – INT. – The auditorium.

(The PROFESSOR comes to the podium with his head down. The FATHER is already at his stand, in front of the microphone. He is sure of himself, a man who knows the facts are on his side.)

MODERATOR: We are ready for the last questions. You may start.

FATHER: So, professor, are you ready?

(The PROFESSOR is possessed in anger.)

PROFESSOR: I am a professor. I am always ready. Let’s finish this now.

FATHER: Very well. I am but an ignorant working American, not a powerful professor, so please explain to me: you do believe we come from moneys, even though Genesis clearly says otherwise. Is that correct?

(The PROFESSOR cannot help himself and lets out a loud sigh. He is superior to this man. He knows it.)

PROFESSOR: Of course we are. Darwin said so!

FATHER: And the word of Darwin is true, is it?

PROFESSOR: Yes. Darwin’s theory is the only truth.

(Camera pans to show members of the audience looking unsure, like they just started to comprehend the real truth.)

FATHER: Very well. Again, forgive me for being just an ignorant God-fearing American, but have you ever seen a monkey give birth to a man?

(Chuckles from the crowd at the auditorium. The PROFESSOR hesitates.

Alternate scenes from the AUDITORIUM crowds with clips from the crowds all around the world who are following the debate via large screens. They too are laughing at the silly idea that a monkey can give birth to a perfect white anglo-saxon baby.)

PROFESSOR: This is a ridiculous question. Of course not.

FATHER: No? And yet you wish us to believe that this is true. Further, isn’t it true, sir, that darwinism led to Nazism?

(The crowd lets out a loud “ohhhh”)

PROFESSOR: Yes, that is true but you have to understand, it was only meant to strengthen the human race! We can do better if we only collectively decide to abandon the Christian fait…

(Boos from the crowd. The crowd has already changed sides. Alternate with similar shots of crowds all over the world.)

SCENE #668 – EXT. Somewhere in Iran or Syria or Cuba.

(We see a man wearing a turban. He looks to be making a decision. A tough, life-changing decision. He looks around at the crowd of turban-wearing men then at the sky.)

TURBAN MAN: Mohammad is a farse! Praise Jesus Christ. Praise America!

(He rips off his turban and looks around. Others are doing the same and cheering and slaughtering the few government tugs trying to impose Islam.)

SCENE #669 – INT. – The AUDITORIUM

(Close-up of the PROFESSOR’s face. He is lost.)

PROFESSOR: (Studdering.) But it’s not so simple, it’s…

FATHER: But it IS simple, sir. It is very simple. God made it simple. If you have never seen a monkey giving birth to a beautiful white baby, then how can you expect us to believe your lies?

PROFESSOR: Wait, I must…

FATHER: Wait? No, sir, I will not wait. I am tired of your lies. We all are. You are trying to move us away from Jesus and our Founding Fathers. It is that simple. You need even more proof?

(The PROFESSOR is now unable to respond. He is lost. Completely. He just looks back at the FATHER inquisitively.)

FATHER: If evolution is true. If your Nazi Darwin is correct. Then tell me, “professor”, tell US: how is it that there are STILL monkeys in zoos?

(Shots of the crowds everywhere in silence. Waiting.)

PROFESSOR: I… I do not know…

(Shots of the crowds celebrating all over the world. The DAUGHTER jumps from her seat and hugs her FATHER.)

PROFESSOR: Oh my Lord almighty, how could I be so wrong? What have I done?

FATHER: What have you done? You have willingly condemned hundreds of KIDS, your students to eternal damnation in hell. That is what you have done all these years.

PROFESSOR: (Now weeping uncontrollably.) I… I… I am sorry. I did not know. I was angry at God. I was mad at Him. Forgive me, Jesus! Forgive me!

DAUGHTER: Oh, father, I am so sorry. I failed you, my father.

FATHER: Yes, you have. You failed me and you failed your God. But you will make up for it. It wasn’t your fault, you were fooled by Satan. You will repent and make up for your failure.

(The crowds in Godless places are rioting now. Pagan leaders are hiding or running, unable to cope with the wrath that is not upon them. The world rejoices.)

DAUGHTER: I want to leave, father. I want to go back home with you.

FATHER: Yes, let’s go, honey. I am hungry and I haven’t had some good ol’ home cooking every since your mother died, rest her soul, and you left for this Godless place.

So, the female protagonist is utterly passive in this story – despite being the vehicle for the plot – and must be argued over by Mr. All American Father and Prof. Strawman Atheist. She has dialogue, but is otherwise a macguffin.